It's not hard, but you need to know that telling FB that your friend is dead is even an option, then go search for that. For most of us that probably seems pretty simple, but we're definitely the outliers in regards to technical sophistication and knowing how a site 'should' work.

In addition, there's the 'etiquette' of trying to figure out if you, as a friend, should do that, or whether you should leave it to their family, and then wondering if their family even knows about their FB profile, etc.

As the article pointed out, 'there are likely far more accounts that haven't been memorialized' - which suggests that people don't do it.